The proposal was made by the company’s general director, Ho Huong,in a meeting with the city’s leadership this month.
Huong said the company’s water plants with a total capacity of210,000 cubic metres each day have been overworked in summer when it exceededdesigned capacity to supply 260,000 cubic metres a day.
He said the company will have to supply 660,000 cubic metres eachday in 2025, and needs an early start to be able to do that.
Using ODA funds would mean that the Hoa Lien Water Supply Plantcan only begin operations by 2022, given the complicated procedures, managementand operations associated with such funding.
“We can raise funds ourselves for the first stage of the Hoa Lienwater plant in the fourth quarter of 2017 and begin operations in late 2019,providing an additional 120,000 cubic metres of clean water each day,” Huongsaid.
“The Hoa Lien Water plant would use 4.8 trillion VND (212.3million USD) for a 20-year construction and operation period, but we can reduceinvestment capital by building the plant faster,” he said.
While the ODA funding would be for a PPP (public-privatepartnership) project, Dawaco can raise funds from shareholders because it is ajoint-stock company.
Huynh Duc Tho, Chairman of the Da Nang People’s Committee, saidthe city will consider Dawaco’s proposal soon.
Tho asked the company to prepare a fundraising plan with a strictconstruction schedule. The city will decide the best way of investing later, hesaid.
This is the second project in Da Nang that the investor hasspurned ODA funds. The Da Nang Port Company raised funds from shareholdersinstead of using ODA from Japan.
Da Nang authorities have said the city is set to face a watercrisis in the coming years as water exploitation has equaled existing designedcapacity with 200,000 cubic metres taken from the Vu Gia River.
Meanwhile, the Cau Do water station, the city’s major supplier, isstruggling often with highly saline water due to a lack of supply from theupstream rivers during the dry season.
The city had called for Public-Private-Partnership (PPP)investment projects in waste water treatment and clean water supply and itseeks to become a ‘green’ city.
It has estimated project costs at 6 trillion VND (267 millionUSD), of which 218 million USD would be used for urban infrastructure, to reachthe ‘green’ target (an environmentally friendly city) by 2025.
In 2015, the city had listed 19 projects calling for investmentsof 16.5 trillion VND (768 million USD) under the Public-Private-Partnership(PPP) model.
The same year, it presented a 115-million USD budget proposal forupgrading waste water treatment stations, waste water drainage systems anddrainage channels in the city. The World Bank had agreed to loan 100 million USDfor this project.-VNA